No. 2, 2009

Oil of Russia magazine talks to Ken Fox, Invensys Process Systems Vice-President for Marketing in Europe, Africa and Middle East

Invensys Process Systems is an enterprise technology, software and consulting company that takes the lead in significant changes in process manufacturing, plant optimization, business operations, and enterprise performance.  The company is helping its clients in vital vertical industries leverage the real-time convergence of manufacturing infrastructure and business operations.

Q: Mr. Vice-President, how would you estimate Invensys Process Systems activities in Russia as of today?

A: Invensys Process Systems Russia (IPS Russia) is a fast growing company within the automation technology and solutions market in Russia and CIS. IPS wants to continue the company's expansion within Russia and CIS from their Russia headquarters in Moscow. IPS have built a strong network of representative offices and channel partners that help deliver the same consistent portfolio of solutions and services that are used by companies worldwide.

The IPS Russia office, which is certified in accordance with ISO 9001, currently has two main functions: sales and marketing (including technical sales consultancy) and delivery and project execution (including service) groups. The company plans to open a new Strategic sales centre in 2010. IPS key clients in Russia are Gazprom, LUKOIL, Acron, and Eurochem.

Q: Please tell us about IPS solutions for fuel and energy complex companies.

A: As a global technology, software and consulting company IPS leads significant change in process manufacturing, plant optimization, business operations and enterprise performance. Our clients represent some of the world's most important industrial organizations; companies that operate large refineries; plants that process chemicals, gas, LNG, power, pharmaceutical and minerals including pulp and paper mills. The company's solutions are used at more than 50,000 locations across the globe and include field devices and controls from Foxboro and Triconex, advanced applications from SimSci-Esscor, operations management from Avantis, and the world's first truly open enterprise control system, InFusion. 

With approximately 7,000 employees IPS integrate these capabilities to create solutions that impact and increase efficiency, boost productivity and accelerate performance. These results help fuel and energy complex companies run safer, operate more efficiently and extract useful knowledge from their operations to make faster, better decisions.

To date we have completed 12 grass roots refinery projects including the world's largest (Reliance in India), more than 40 revamp projects and deploy technologies on more than 200 others all around the globe.

Q: How would you evaluate your company cooperation with LUKOIL Group?

A: IPS already has experience in cooperating with LUKOIL. Some of these projects are in the upstream sector but IPS also has a good installed base in the LUKOIL refining sector such as LUKOIL-Volgogradneftepererabotka, Korobkovsky gas processing plant. LUKOIL-Permnefteorgsintez is also using IPS equipment. Most of this installed base relates to Control Systems.

Q: What is your vision of wireless information technologies development in Russian industry and in fuel and energy complex in particular?

A: The advantage of wireless technologies can leverage the Russian industry as it did in other geographical markets. However the use of wireless technology is always subject to local legislation which may impose limits on frequency use and power.

Wireless technology has advanced significantly within the last few years. In the last two years wireless technology has gained a greater degree of acceptance within the end user community. This represents a significant change as until recently there was a fairly strong bias against experimenting with a technology that was perceived to be unreliable, unsecure, and unpredictable. End users are now recognising the benefits of wireless technology considering it is secure.

Among the most interesting applications to emerge, particularly in fuel and energy complexes, are mobile operator applications and the related types of solutions associated with the mobile operator. The ability to free the operator, maintenance, engineer from the control room and let them roam freely in the field is clearly becoming an application of great interest within all industries.

Many users are waiting for industry standards to be adopted but Wireless Hart is becoming available now. Also, ISA 100 will probably be ratified early in 2009. Wireless is often used as a low cost method of obtaining incremental process measurements which are valuable but this application is very much a niche market. What fuel and energy complex managers and operators are really interested in is operator mobility, visualisation and voice over IP applications. Visualisation applications are particularly interesting as it enables the user to capture complex data. By using this captured data users can visualise any part of the process plant. The developments in the field of video camera observation are interesting as the pixel cost per square centimeter is falling rapidly similar to the cost of computing but processing power increases rapidly. This contains a great opportunity for all of Russia's major process industries.

Q: What are the company plans for 2009-2010?

A: IPS creates value for its customers by offering efficiency, safety and ease of use and intends to drive this value through information and optimisation technology and engineered content.

IPS, IRG and Eurotherm will continue to develop solutions that enable their customers to safely control, monitor and optimise the efficiency of their operations, focusing on a number of vertical markets. Invensys Controls will continue to develop engineered solutions with unique technical features for the appliance and residential market within the consumer cyclical industries. Wonderware will increase its installed base and broaden its platforms and applications together with solutions from our other process automation businesses and third party system integrators.

The company will make technology and product improvements that will focus on ease of use so that their customers can derive value from the integration capabilities that IPS's next-generation control architecture DCS system and InFusion can bring. IPS will expand their technical capabilities through a combination of internal development and acquisitions to build real-time enterprise and supply optimization offerings.

For Invensys Controls, we will continue to invest to develop unique features that deliver value to our customers, particularly at the mid to high end of the global appliance market. We will work alongside our customers to ensure that our offerings enable them to gain a competitive advantage through innovation and energy conservation.